Im in Kanagawa.
I just finished the second chapter, I honestly got sucked in to this. I am supposed to be reading Star Wars, but this has become my train companion and will be for the foreseeable future. There were a few things. But honestly I found this very readable.
Kanji side of things is a little difficult for me, which is why I went through the words deck with a microscope, and have a few observations:
page 1 (from ないないの女の子 to 親族):
登り のぼり missing from deck
敷く しく - I don’t see it in text, perhaps a misparse of しか
盛り さかり - I don’t think it’s this, it’s 盛り足す もりたす (but there’s no furigana)
点ける - another つける I think, 名前を付ける
奴 やっこ - probably just やつ, not a samurai attendant
さほど missing from deck
切り崩す きりくずす missing from deck
事,会う - this ~したこともあって is just a form of たことがある (JLPT N5) | Bunpro, so there’s no 合う
疎遠 (no furigana) - そえん
Enjoying the book quite a bit so far!
I’m a bit confused, The 1st week starts today? Or did it end today?
The discussion of the “whole” thing starts today, or are you discussing as you read?
Also, I have an epub, can anybody tell me what the last line should be?
I have never done book club stuff before. 
Hi! It starts today!
I’m also working with the epub version of the text. If i look at the table of contents, i think we’ll stop at the end of chapter 2. So the last line of chapter 2 is
何も持たない一人ぼっちの少女は、スーパーカブを手に入れた。
Is there any way to have a wiki-file of some sort while reading the book? i would really like to have a file we could easily edit. A google doc file ? It could make the experience easier : like having a list of characters (or proper names) appearing in each chapter…
The way I understood it is we discuss as we go, so on day 1 (today) pages 1-3 are fair game, etc with the aim of reaching p15 by Sunday.
Since we count from the beginning of chapter 1, print edition pages per chapter go something like this:
Thank you! I haven’t even started because I was preparing a bit more with that vocab deck, and for a moment I thought I was late already 
Well I did do the 3 pages today, but I admit I struggled quite a bit with it. I used Bookwalker + Yomitan to do so and I reckon my comprehension was probably like half or less.
This is clearly above my level, but I think I’ll stick with it and hopefully it will get easier with time and with the vocab decks we’ve been provided with. <3
Oh and as for where I am, I’m based in the UK.
Sounds like about where I am! 私たちは頑張りましょう！
I think I have at least one word per sentence I don’t recognize, which is in line with what I would expect. It’ll be interesting to see where we end at the end of the reading.
Also while the vocab deck is a little overwhelming with how many words are in the first chapter, I really appreciate the effort putting it together. After rereading the first couple lines after studying it for a few days I can already say it’s dramatically improving my comprehension. Hopefully as I learn more I won’t have 500 words a week to add to keep up with all of them.
To hop on the question train I’m trying to understand the sentence 趣味らしい趣味も無い。
I think this is using the らしい form to say “Things like hobbies” so a literal translation would be “I don’t have hobbies or things like hobbies.” but I’m unsure why the author would duplicate the verb with らしい here instead of just saying something like 趣味は無い。
In addition I’m trying to understand when one might use 無い vs ない given they seem to mean and read the same. I imagine they might have different subtexts but I’m unsure what they mean.
This pattern (nounらしいnoun) is fairly common. I’ve never actually looked it up but my understanding is that the usage of らしい here is talking about things typical of the noun in question. So here it would mean like “She also had no hobby-ish hobbies” (Could also be said as, following on from the other sentences, perhaps “Nor did she have anything that might be considered a typical hobby”). I hate translation and especially individual sentences without context but that’s basically how I’d understand it.
It could be easier to understand with a a noun which lends itself to this kind of usage in English and Japanese. E.g., 男らしい男, a manly man.
Edit: I just looked at the context and perhaps “She didn’t even have anything one might call a hobby” or “She didn’t even have any real interests” is closer to the sentiment in the context. I really hate translation…
We’re editing the way our checker works at the moment for finding words, so a lot of these should be fixed soon. We’re adding all of the alternative readings for kanji today or tomorrow as well, so ones that show up with the wrong kanji should be fixed.
Definitely stick with it! This series is good in the sense that it has a LOT of repeated vocabulary. So once you get over the initial hump of new words, you’ll find that your understanding will shoot up quite a lot. Also because it is a daily life story, it rarely uses uncommon grammar unless it’s for emphasis.
It’s a great series. If you have a Japanese Audible subscription, this is one of the titles that is available on 聞き放題, and it is very well voice acted for all 10 volumes or so that are available. Highly recommend having a listen after reading the book as a bit of listening training.
Basically we progress forward at a rate of 3 pages per day, but you’re more than welcome to just jump in at the end of the week and discuss anything that has been previously read. The only real request for people is not to ask spoilery type stuff that is too far ahead of the average pace of the group.
I think you’ll find that you will improve really quickly. This is quite a forgiving series in terms of using the same vocabulary over and over after the story is set up.
As for らしい, we actually have this use of らしい on Bunpro. らしい 2 You’ll see a mention of it in the Fun-fact section at the bottom of the description. Basically, when a noun is repeated, it indicates (A) that is (A) through and through. So in this case she is saying ‘I don’t have any hobbies that you could actually really call hobbies’. Maybe she has a few things she enjoys, but nothing that she could actually say she is passionate about.
3 pages per day, or 15 pages per week is much more manageable for me! I’m glad it was changed.
I have the physical copy of the book which is 282 pages (including occasional illustrations), so to be clear, we’ll be finishing the book in about 3 months?
As a side note I am also in Japan! Looking froward to reading and discussing with everyone!
Yep! You’re welcome to read faster/slower if you like, so long as questions and discussions are kept relatively related to content at the pace of the group.
Hi!
I find this book quite daunting, as the author likes to make quite detailed subjects (e.g. …さほど多額でなかった父の遺産を切り崩しながら小熊を育てた母親…) and create ‘new’ verbs (切り崩す).
Anyways, I think it is a good read to push the boundaries.
(Some of) the questions I have are:
what is the meaning of ‘…田舎の女学生という印象しか抱かれないような女の子’, that, irrespective of being an urban girl, she was the type of girl that could not avoid having the feeling of being a rural schoolgirl?
what is the meaning of the sentence ‘ドラマや漫画では強調されがちな、たった一人の親に捨てられた悲しみは自分でも驚くほどと薄いものだった’, that the sadness of being abandoned by only one of the parents as is typically stressed both in dramas and mangas (long subject) was a thing so weak that it even surprised herself?
The sort of girl who isn’t thought to have the impression of anything other than that of a country schoolgirl.
The sadness of being discarded by one’s one and only parent that tends to be accentuated in things like manga and dramas was something that was weak, even to an extent that surprised herself.
The detailed/long subjects you mentioned are one of the hardest parts of reading Japanese for me as well. I think in other languages they would just be relative clauses. When parsing those sentences, one really needs to be careful to find the actual noun/thing being “attributed”. But I believe it is also something that makes Japanese grammar “beautiful” and interesting.
I think the 抱かれない is the passive form. So that is why the girl is not “having the feeling” but “being thought of”.
Thank you both!
Indeed, that is one of the beauties of this language. It works backwards, as Jay Rubin says.
Detailed and long descriptions are something that I’m finding really hard to work through, mainly just mentally checking out on them after getting a vague gist. Def an important reason to keep reading more things and staying challenged.
Another 3 pages today, and I want to also say that I am finding them very hard to work through too, mind myself being extremely tired today isn’t helping.
Still going to keep on keeping on.
And yet another 3 pages done. <3
I have just realised that since I’m reading it on bookwalker, my 3 pages may not be matching up to other peoples 3 pages in terms of length but it is interesting. 
I would ask questions about grammar, vocab, meaning and such but if I asked about everything I was unsure of I’d be basically for a translation so I’m just going to keep on keeping on and then perhaps re-read it when we finish the club to see how different it feels.
I do hope more people can chime in on the intermediate club, even if it’s only to say they’re here, I feel like we’re losing to both the Beginner and Advanced clubs in terms of activity and we can’t have that can we?